One of the best days in my life was during a run at Telluride. It was mid-summer in 87 and I took the lift up to the top with a close friend. We descended the back side of Gold Hill and climbed the steep North ridge of Palmyra Peak (13,000+) and dropped acid on the summit. The incredibly beautiful Sneffels range was spread out in all it's glory before us. We descended from the sharp summit about 35 feet, donned our skis and ripped it up down perfect corn through a long, classic 2000 foot couloir, schussing our way down the Bear Creek drainage, laughing the whole way, to the Aspen forest. We took off our skis and descended the switch backs, as we drew nearer and nearer town the band started playing down below, and Jerry's guitar was drifting up through the woods to us. We "missed" the first couple of songs of the first set, but enjoying them floating upwards as we were coming down the trail, the green glowing forest around us, sunburned, happy and high was even better than being inside. We dumped our packs at the gate and went in and danced the evening away. Awesome day.
If I had to pick one of us to speak for us all
He would have done the job well
Coming from some crazy angle
He'd have known which story to tell
he'd tell the truth about real music
he knew the truth long before he fell
His fingers would touch his guitar neck
My axe would be pressed to my chest
A chord and a melody would walk in the door
Closely followed by all of the rest
Magic and tragic and triumph and storm
and all the things we had sought on our quest
You get your ego out of the way of your hearts
The whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts
A sort of field pops into existence
Everything lifts off the ground
You know that you're doing what you were born to do
That you're using the gift that you've found
To create some lift and break all the chains
with which all our people are bound
he did it for all the right reasons
and made all of our mistakes
a more human man you could not find
an accelerator without the brakes
but he had the brains and the heart and the spirit
Garcia really had what it takes.
Pate Grateful Dead Appreciation BUMP
(Heard a wonderful set on community radio early early this morning, made me think of Colorado, fishing and acceptance ...BUMP BUMP!)
Now what's to be found by racing around,
you carry your pain wherever you go,
Full of blues, and tryin' to lose,
You ain't gonna learn what you don't wanna know.
Let us know!